Page 19 of The Endless One

He was exhausted. Even her mind conjured that because he had been trying so hard to find her. She knew there wasn’t an ounce of him that would give up hope that he would eventually get to her side. Elric didn’t want to give up. He’d fight for her until his very last breath, because that was who he was.

So if he was here with her, his eyes would be smudged with shadow. His shirt would be undone at the collar, the buttons loose, and not tucked into his waistband like normal. His hair would be tangled around his face, knotted because she hadn’t been there to run her fingers through the locks and make sure that he looked a little less wild.

His hand was callused where it gripped hers. She knew these hands as well as she knew her own, and that… that was all she wanted. She wanted him here, with her, as he had always been at the end of things.

“Nightmare,” he murmured, his voice full of emotion. “You cannot summon me here. He will sense that there is another god.”

“I didn’t summon you, Elric.” Jessamine tried to whisper the words as Ajax’s spell swelled over their heads. “I just wanted you here with me while it all ends.”

Elric’s head jerked up as he looked around them. “He’s doing it now?”

“He wants me to take a goddess into my body so that he can rule with a queen at his side. I don’t know why he chose me, but he did.”

It was a lie. She knew why both Ajax and Leon had chosen her. She already had experience with gods, and also she had magic of her own. Perhaps that would help in the long and short of it. That’s why they had given Fortuna power, after all. But Ajax didn’t want a disfigured queen, and the opportunity for healing what she had done to Fortuna was long past.

Her Deathless God looked around them before leaning close. “Jessamine, listen to me. I can get to you. I just need you to make some space between you and him.”

What? No, she was here and stuck here. Ajax had made it seem…

“Are you really here?” she whispered.

“Only my energy, and not for long. But I can be at your side in an instant if you just make some space. I need you to do that for me, Jessamine.”

“How?”

He looked frantic as he peered around them and then started mouthing the words with Ajax. They were in another language and sounded so dark. So nasty that it was hard for her to focus on what they were. This wasn’t a spellcraft that she knew, and some part of her screamed that this was the language of the gods.

Finally, Elric’s features hardened. “There is going to be a point in this spell where he kills these guards. Blood magic is required for the goddess he wants to put in you.”

“The Crone?”

“The Huntress. He always preferred her, but she never gave him the time of day. Perhaps he thinks resurrecting her will change that. The guards will die, and his attention will shift.”

Her body hurt. Every muscle in her form throbbed at the thought of trying to get away. Her eyes were so bruised and swollen that it was hard to see. How would she do any of this?

Elric must have seen the thoughts on her face, because he squeezed her fingers where she still held his, and said, “I need you to listen to me, Jessamine. Call upon all the women who have fled with broken limbs and bruised skin. I need you to feel them. Their anger. Their rage. Their fear. And then I need you to run like the survivor you are.”

Her eyes flicked back and forth between his. “And if I fail?”

“Then I fear we have lost you. This will not be kind, nor will it be quick. His spell will make you endure the worst pain imaginable until you beg the Huntress to come into your body, just to stop what he’s doing.” Elric squeezed her hand again. “Run, Jessamine.”

And then he disappeared. She wasn’t sure if that was due to Ajax’s spell or if something else happened that made him leave, but he was gone. And it was just her.

Swallowing hard, she bowed her head and listened to the monotone of the god’s voice surrounding her. The guards behind her didn’t seem to notice that anything was happening at all. Their eyes had been full of fanatic expectation, and she wasn’t going to warn them that something bad was going to happen. Death called for them. Frankly, they deserved it.

She heard the swell in the magic and felt the energy that erupted from Ajax’s hands, just like Elric had said.

It sank beneath her skin, a stranger that ruptured through every blood vessel and threaded through her very soul. She could feel it. White hot and angry, a rage that wasn’t her own suddenly opening like a chasm in her head and screaming with violence.

More magic was targeted at the two guards behind her. Their throats sliced open. A spray of warm blood splashed all over her, the altar, and Ajax. He tilted his head back in reverie, as though it were a rose bath, and she knew that was her moment.

Gathering herself, she stilled her body until Ajax picked up the first guard and held his neck over the altar, bathing it in blood. The rivers of it rushed toward her, and then she just… moved.

Her body bunched, her legs jolted, and she ran. She ran as fast as she could, staggering over the ground until she finally found her footing and then bolted.

Breath sawing in and out of her lungs, she felt the texture of the grass whipping her thighs. Ajax had wanted her in virginal white, he’d said. The sheer dress was no barrier between her and the canes of reeds that slapped her knees and the wounds above them. But the pain kept her going. It kept her moving forward, no matter what happened.

She only had a few moments. A few moments to be free.